Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD) Upgraded by Wall Street Zen to Buy Rating

Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD - Free Report) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report published on Friday.

A number of other analysts have also issued reports on DIOD. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Diodes from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $50.00 price target for the company in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Baird R W raised shares of Diodes from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, April 7th. Finally, Benchmark reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $62.00 price target (up from $55.00) on shares of Diodes in a research report on Friday, June 13th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, three have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $55.00.

Diodes Stock Performance

Shares of Diodes stock traded down $0.76 during trading on Friday, hitting $54.50. 106,614 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 449,608. The stock's fifty day moving average is $50.94 and its 200 day moving average is $49.47. The stock has a market cap of $2.53 billion, a PE ratio of 98.90 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.01, a quick ratio of 2.11 and a current ratio of 3.43. Diodes has a 12 month low of $32.93 and a 12 month high of $84.03.

Diodes (NASDAQ:DIOD - Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 8th. The semiconductor company reported $0.19 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.18 by $0.01. Diodes had a net margin of 1.90% and a return on equity of 3.04%. The firm had revenue of $332.11 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $323.28 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.28 EPS. Diodes's revenue was up 10.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Diodes will post 1.82 EPS for the current year.

Diodes declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, May 8th that authorizes the company to buyback $100.00 million in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the semiconductor company to repurchase up to 5.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are typically an indication that the company's board believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in DIOD. Principal Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Diodes by 2.6% in the first quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 230,728 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $9,961,000 after buying an additional 5,931 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. increased its position in Diodes by 19.7% in the first quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 18,768 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $810,000 after purchasing an additional 3,092 shares during the period. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its position in Diodes by 4,211.7% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 35,313 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $1,524,000 after purchasing an additional 34,494 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in Diodes in the first quarter worth about $952,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Diodes by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 5,910,766 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $364,517,000 after purchasing an additional 102,263 shares during the period. 99.23% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Diodes

Diodes Incorporated, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and supplies application-specific standard products in the broad discrete, logic, analog, and mixed-signal semiconductor markets worldwide. The company offers discrete semiconductor products, such as MOSFETs, SiC MOSFETs; data line protection, power line protection, thyristers, USB Type-C protection, and transient voltage suppressors; Schottky, small signal switching, Zener, and SiC diodes; bridges, super barrier, Schottky, Schottky bridge, and fast/ultra-fast rectifiers; and bipolar, avalanche, gate driver, and pre-bias transistors.